GAO: BLM mishandled land trades with Calif., Wash.

LOS ANGELES 
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management overstepped its authority to exchange federal land in California and Washington state by buying and selling properties outside of Congress' appropriations process, according to a government audit released Monday.

The Government Accountability Office report said the BLM's land transactions completed since 1995 in Washington involved the sale or purchase of properties, rather than the straightforward trades that the agency is permitted to perform.

In California, where the BLM worked on land deals in conjunction with the U.S. General Service Administration, all but two transactions since 1995 involved buying or selling land, the agency said.

"BLM's actions circumvent the carefully crafted statutory framework governing the sale, purchase, and exchange of public land - a framework designed to protect the public interest," the GAO report said.

A BLM spokesman referred questions to the bureau's parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior. Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said her agency was reviewing the report.

A phone message left with the GSA was not returned Monday.

The report details seven transactions involving the sale or purchase of land in Washington that the BLM completed with Orofino, Idaho-based Clearwater Land Exchange, a private business that helps facilitate property swaps for government agencies.

Carla Laws, a Clearwater partner, said all of its transactions with the BLM have been exchanges, although some "phased exchanges" involve holding money from sales in escrow until new purchases can be made.

The report did not specify the number of transactions completed in California, but detailed several deals where the BLM appeared not to have completed simple exchanges.

One identified as the "Dixon transactions" showed the BLM and GSA bought land from California, rather than offering federal land as a trade. In another series of transactions, the GSA was accused of selling surplus federal property to third-party buyers at the BLM's direction.

Phone messages and e-mails left with the Government Accountability Office seeking details about the number of California deals and the locations of the purchases in both states were not immediately returned.

In its report, the accountability office also faulted the BLM for not depositing money from sales into an account designated for purchasing new property, which was thereby depleted "of amounts it should have received to fund qualifying land purchases."

The BLM instead used Treasury deposit fund accounts, a type of account that is designated for money not controlled by the government.

The office said the BLM currently has at least $7.9 million from sales in California in a deposit fund account. The report did not specify a figure for sales in Washington state.

The accountability Office also said the BLM's practices could have cost revenue, since it sold land directly to interested buyers instead of putting it out for competitive bids.